


It All Falls into Place

by anisstaranise



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Law Enforcement, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Lost Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Second Chances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-13
Updated: 2016-08-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 12:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7757704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anisstaranise/pseuds/anisstaranise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the past ten years, his job has been his priority.</p><p>While some said he was driven when it came to doing his job, others claimed it had been an obsession- an obsession that had cost him friendships and relationships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It All Falls into Place

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [SEBLAINE WEEK 2016](http://seblaineaffairs.tumblr.com/tagged/sw2016): _Day 7 - **5 Years Later**_
> 
> Inspired by a scene from **The Blacklist**
> 
> Title taken from **Artist Vs Poets** ' " _Sail Away_ "
> 
> My love and thanks to @ttinycourageous

A steady beeping pierces through the darkness- two beats, a pause, two more beats follow. The sound pulls him out of the heavy fog that weighs his head. He tries to pry his eyelids open but they’re equally heavy.

He pushes through it. He manages a peek- one that he regrets instantaneously the moment the harsh light assaults his vision.

He shuts his eyes again. He concentrates on the steady beeps around him. With a deep breath, he tries once more and slowly opens his eyes. The light is less jarring than before. He blinks- once, twice- and let’s his sights come into focus.

Bland grey drop ceilings, bland grey walls with a floral decal that runs along the width of it that does little to spruce up the tiny room- a hospital room.

As his vision sharpens, the heavy fog in his head- courtesy of the bouts of painkillers, he suspects- slowly lifts and he recalls the events of the past few hours.

For the most part of his ten-year career with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he’s worked under a special taskforce whose sole mission was to apprehend one of the most wanted criminals in the nation; one infamously dubbed the _concierge of crime_ , who pledges a fleeting allegiance only to the highest bidder employing her vast expertise.

Katherine Wilde.

Although commonly known in the criminal world as ‘Kitty’, the innocence of the name is merely a misnomer when compared to her notoriety; she’s known to provide safe passage for wanted criminals like herself to avoid prosecution and she’s excellent at abducting the loved ones of prominent figures in order to get them to do her bidding.

And for the past ten years, taking down Kitty Wilde and dismantling her organization has been his priority.

While some said he was driven when it came to doing his job, others claimed it had been an obsession- an obsession that had cost him friendships and relationships.

But none had as lasting an impact as when his fiancé had walked out of their home five years ago- bags packed, never looking back.

Two days prior, the taskforce had received solid intelligence of Kitty’s whereabouts- along with the key players of her criminal organization; a silent auction at the Museum of Natural History that was meant to benefit refugees worldwide but it was really a front for a less than honourable activity.

The taskforce had formed a strategy to apprehend Kitty Wilde and on the day, every agent and asset alike had taken their positions- each a chess piece awaiting the gameplay.

He should have known to take down the Queen that was Kitty Wilde would prove to be severely challenging- she had evaded all of their tactics over the years, after all. But what he hadn’t known was that whatever business Kitty had been conducting under the guise of the auction, members of her security team were heavily armed (Kitty was a notorious criminal but never the violent one) and soon, gunfire was exchanged between federal agents and Kitty’s henchmen.

A rippling pain cuts through his drug-induced haze and he recalls taking two shots; one to the right shoulder and one to the thigh. If it hadn’t been for his partner, Santana, pulling him out of the line of fire, he’s sure he would have been riddled with more bullet holes.

His obsession with Kitty Wilde would have cost him one final thing: his life.

As the intensity of the pain blooming in his thigh and shoulder grow, the fingers of his left hand close around a slender handheld button. He suspects a doctor or a nurse had placed it is his palm for when the anaesthesia wore off upon waking up.

He presses the button vigorously, eager for reprieve from the pain. The patient-controlled analgesic machine hums as it releases morphine into his veins. He sighs contently, feeling the drug coursing through his body, numbing the throbbing pain.

He closes his eyes and relaxes, slowly drifting to sleep, lulled by the steady beeping of the monitors when he hears the glass sliding doors of his tiny room glide open.

“Sebastian?”

His eyes snap open at the sound of the voice- the voice he hasn’t heard in almost five years. He’s sure he’s just imagining it, a cruel mirage created by the painkillers, making flesh his deepest desires.

“Blaine?” he whispers cautiously, afraid the sound of his voice will disrupt this bittersweet illusion.

He slowly scans the entrance of the room, part of him eager to find the source of the voice- it’s been five years and not a day goes by that he doesn’t miss it. The other part of him dreads it just the same- for every day he misses _that_ voice, he’s lived to regret the fact that he’s the reason it’s been absent these last five years.

His chest constricts with the overwhelming emotions of surprise and excitement and a pang of guilt once he finds the source of the voice standing by the door.

Clad in a bright coloured sweater over pristinely crisp dress pants and shirt, finished with an equally bright coloured silk bowtie. Dark, wavy hair combed back in the style of a 1950s Hollywood movie star; Blaine Anderson, dashing as ever.

“Hi,” Blaine says and steps closer to the bed rather hesitantly.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, the shock at seeing Blaine combined with the morphine-laced disorientation making him forgo any niceties.

“The Bureau called,” Blaine says with a little laugh. That laugh, he thinks. What a beautiful sound. “I guess I’m still listed as your emergency contact- your next of kin.”

“I’m sorry,” he quips. “I meant to have it changed, but I’ve been so caught up with work that I-”

He stops himself from saying anymore. This apology plays like a broken record. He had apologized for missed dinners and Christmases and all the moments in between far too often.

Ever since he joined the taskforce, everything not directly associated with the case falls to second place, pushed far on the back burner. And he had undeservedly placed Blaine second far too many times.

“I’m sorry-” he repeats.

“It’s okay- really,” Blaine assures with a smile. That beautiful smile he’s been deprived of all these years. “So-” Blaine drawls as he fiddles with the hem of his coat that’s draped over his left arm. “-you’re okay?”

He smiles, following Blaine’s eyes to the sling that’s cradling his arm as his fingers instinctively trace over the heavy bandages of his left thigh.

 “I’m okay,” he assures.

“That’s good,” Blaine says, still fiddling with his coat. He adores all of Blaine’s nervous ticks, from biting the bottom of his lip to fiddling with anything just so his hands have something to do. He tracks Blaine’s fiddly fingers. That’s when he sees it- gleaming on his finger.

“You’re engaged.”

It’s not a question; he’s merely stating his observation. After five years, he’s almost forgotten what a raw heartbreak feels like.

“I- I’m-” Blaine fumbles with his words. Another endearing nervous tick, he recalls.

“Tell me he’s fat and unemployed,” he jokes because what else is there to say? Blaine doesn’t owe him anything, least of all an explanation considering his engagement. Blaine deserves to be happy, to never come second to a job, to a case, to _anything_.

Blaine laughs that beautiful laugh again. This time, the laughter reaches his eyes- those beautiful, hazel eyes.

“He’s fat and unemployed,” Blaine jests heartily.

They bask in the moment amidst the monitor’s steady beeps, sharing a laugh and smiling at one another- as if the past five years never happened, as if they were back in that tiny apartment in Chelsea- not a care in the world, only love for one another.

“Stay awhile?” he asks after a moment.

“I’d love to,” Blaine replies as he settles into a chair by the bed, all traces of hesitation gone.

\---

The room is darker when he comes to, the light over the bed glowing a little brighter than before. Nightfall, he deduces. He groans at the pain that’s creeping past the waning morphine. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing he does remember is-

“Blaine,” he whispers.

“Yes?”

He almost jumps out of his skin at the sound of Blaine’s voice.

“You’re still here,” he says. There’s a gladness that’s bursting in his chest. He hasn’t felt this way in a long time.

“I didn’t want to leave while you were sleeping,” Blaine explains, rising from his seat. “I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”

His breath catches in his throat. _Goodbye_. He realizes he’s about to lose Blaine all over again.

“Thank you,” he says instead.

“Anytime, Sebastian.”

Blaine gathers his coat off the chair and turns to leave. He watches each move, desperate to remember everything that is _Blaine_ in this moment. Then, Blaine stops by the door and turns rather hesitantly.

“Would you mind if-” Blaine starts to say before stopping. He watches as Blaine bites the bottom of his lip a few times before continuing. “Would it be okay if I dropped by again- tomorrow?”

He smiles. There’s an unprecedented happiness coursing through his veins at the sound of the words that acts as a better painkiller than the morphine. Despite all the downs they have been through- perhaps this could be his chance at atonement. This way, perhaps he gets to keep Blaine in his life. A friend.

“I would love that very much.”

\---

He shovels spoons full of raspberry Jell-O into his mouth- the only edible course of the hospital meals, he decides- savouring the sweet and sourness of the dessert as the television plays a rather interesting telenovela. Before he knows it, he’s roped into the plot of a 19th century heroine’s woes of falling in love with a man above her station. He wonders why he’s deprived himself of the simple pleasures in life such as a show with riveting plots and tropes where no character actually stays dead for long.

He’s so engrossed with the show- a scene where the heroine, Ana Maria, just discovered that the love of her life, Santiago, is not dead after all but has been living in squalor to avoid prosecution for his father’s sins- that he doesn’t realize when Blaine steps through the sliding doors.

“Am I interrupting?” Blaine asks with a chuckle when he drops a spoonful of Jell-O in his lap, startled.

“Blaine! Hi!”

“I’m sorry- I thought of calling ahead but-”

“You don’t have my new cell number.”

When Blaine had left those years ago, he was eager to move on, to fill the hollowness left in the wake of their breakup. He had dived into his work, drowning in case files and research- and he had tried to burn every bridge that led to Blaine, including changing his number.

“I’m sorry,” he says. _Sorry for the pain I caused_ , he means. _Sorry for all the years lost_.

“I brought Chinese take-out,” Blaine says cheerfully. _Bygones_ , he hears. “-figured you’d hate the hospital food.”

“You know me well, Blaine Anderson.”

And he realizes this had been true then- and remains true now.

\---

He’s discharged the following week, much to his delight. As much as he is grateful for the time to recuperate and souse in the world of telenovelas, he cannot bear spending another minute in the hospital.

The apartment is practically bare- only a three-seater couch pushed to line the far living room wall, a shelf for his vinyl collection and a vintage turntable- but it greets him with a sense of homeliness he never thought he could miss.

Despite the ghastly nature of his injuries, they’re actually not so severe. The bullet to his thigh had been a through and through, missing the femoral artery by inches.

 _Lucky bastard_ , Santana declares on the regular, feigning irritation- but she had been the one to hug him the tightest once he was up and about.

He limps around with a single crutch under his left arm, his thigh still unable to hold his whole weight for long periods and his right arm is still in a sling but the hairline fracture to the scapula and soft tissue damage to his shoulder are healing nicely.

All things considered, he’s recovering just as well. Lucky bastard indeed, he thinks on the regular.

However, he’s still unfit to return to work and the Bureau insists he complete a number of hours of physiotherapy. His first instinct had been to challenge this order and he would have argued that for every minute he’s away from the taskforce, the further away Kitty Wilde will be from their reach.

But after two gunshot wounds, he’s forced to rethink his attachment to the case- especially now that Blaine is back in his life.

Blaine’s visits don’t stop once he’s discharged. If anything, Blaine comes by more often- stopping by after work every other day, making dinner or just to have a night in.

Weeks pass- and before either of them realize it, Blaine becomes a fixture in his routines. A text first thing in the morning to remind him of the medication he’s supposed to take, a call sometime around lunch to ask if he’s having trouble changing his dressings, a dinner together after Blaine gets off work. Days when he has a physiotherapy session, Blaine takes half a day off work and drives him to the hospital.

He revels in the moments with Blaine and imagines this is the life he could have had with the man he loves. Neither of them mentions Blaine’s engagement; he’s too selfish to burst the euphoric bubble that they’ve formed, and Blaine doesn’t speak of the man he’s promised to marry either. And he’s quite content with being selfish when it comes to Blaine.

\---

He follows Blaine’s laughter into the apartment one Friday evening, pleased with himself that he had managed to elicit such a laugh by telling a rather lame joke. He flexes his right hand a few times to adjust the weight of the grocery bag hanging from his healing arm before locking the door behind him.

The thumping of his crutch tip echoes off the kitchen tiles as he heads to put away some of the groceries into the fridge. Blaine’s already doing the same with the non perishables in the pantry. He smiles a little at their domesticity- and not for the first time, his mind wanders to the _what-ifs_ ; what if he hadn’t accepted to join the taskforce and remained with the Cross Jurisdictional Command division instead? What if Blaine never left five years ago?

There’s an ache in his heart, a nagging reminder that all that’s come to pass is due to his choices, his inability to compartmentalize his work life and his home life. And he’s hurt Blaine the most because of it. It’s a wonder Blaine chooses to be a part of his life again.

He turns to look at Blaine, as if to check if the past few months haven’t been some elaborate dream, an illusion that his mind had concocted.

But where he expected to find the evanescence of a mirage, he finds Blaine meeting his gaze, smiling back at him. Solid, real, _here_.

He gives Blaine a little wink before continuing with the task at hand.

He closes the fridge once he’s done and starts to limp off to the living room but stops the moment he sees Blaine unmoving by the pantry, an arm frozen mid-way to shelving a box of Honey Bunches of Oats.

“Blaine?” he calls. Still Blaine remains still. “- you okay?”

He limps back into the kitchen as he watches as Blaine shuts his eyes tight and takes a deep breath. He stops next to his friend and instinctively runs a hand down Blaine’s back- a reflex he’s used to doing whenever Blaine was upset- and patiently waits for a response.

With a huff of his breath, Blaine turns to face him.

“I have a confession,” his friend blurts.

“What is it?” he asks, slightly confused by the outburst and the tears welling at the corners of those hazel eyes.

“I’m not engaged!” Blaine says hurriedly. “I mean- I was. But now I’m not. I haven’t been in a while.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Five years ago when I left- I was- angry- and I was heartbroken,” Blaine explains, his voice breaking with emotion. “I just wanted move on- from all the hurt- from you. So- I put myself back out there. I started dating again. And soon, I was in another relationship.”

He feels the words constrict his heart. The constant reminder that he had the best love, the best person in his life but he had been foolish enough to let it all slip through his fingers- it cuts him deep.

And it hurts him to hear it all but he perseveres. He leans back against the kitchen counter and waits for Blaine to continue.

“But if I had been honest with myself then-” Blaine says, stepping closer to him. “- I would have realized that everyone I’ve ever been with the last five years, I was always looking for you in them.”

He watches as a single tear rolls down Blaine’s cheek and his hand moves on its own volition to wipe it gently away. When Blaine had walked back into his life, he had silently vowed to never be the reason for him to cry again.

“And then I met this man-” Blaine continues. “And he reminded me of you; he’s smart and he’s funny. He’s even as stubborn as you are.”

He laughs a little.

“He asked me to marry him.”

“And you said yes.”

“Yes,” Blaine breathes. “But about a month before meeting you again- I called it off.”

His heart is pounding now. “Why?”

Blaine smiles. “He might have reminded me of you, Sebastian- but- he’s just not you.”

There’s an explosion of emotions within him - of joy, of excitement- and he can hardly contain it. He reaches to take Blaine’s hand in his. His eyes fall on the ring Blaine has been wearing and traces it lovingly with his thumb.

“But the ring?” he asks despite himself.

“It’s just a ring,” Blaine quips. “I wanted to return it but he told me to keep it- and I happen to like it. So- I just keep wearing it.”

Slowly, Blaine erases the space between them and presses their bodies close.

“Ever since the Bureau called, I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Blaine says, his breath tracing his lips. “And when they said you got shot- I was- terrified. I hadn’t seen you in so long yet the thought of losing you- I was so scared.”

Blaine’s crying now and he’s doing his best to kiss the tears away- every peck to his face an apology. _I’m sorry, I’m sorry_.

“I know now what your job means to you. Maybe I’ve known all along- but I’m just too proud, too selfish to admit it,” Blaine says. “I know the good you do in protecting this country, protecting me- and I don’t mind coming in second to that, not anymore.”

“Blaine-”

“I just want to be with you, Sebastian,” Blaine confesses and his heart races frantically in his chest. “I just want you.”

He eagerly takes Blaine’s lips in his and kisses him in earnest. He’s been given a second chance; at life, with Blaine- and he’s not about to waste it.

“I’ll never make you feel like you come in second to the job again- like you mean less to me compared to it-,” he vows when he pulls his lips away from Blaine. He means it with every beat of his heart. “I never want to be without you again.”

This time, it’s Blaine who takes his lips, tiptoeing up to claim them and smiling into the kiss. He smiles, too- how can he not?

His obsession with Kitty Wilde may have been the reason Blaine left five years prior but it’s the event surrounding Kitty Wilde, too, that had led them back to each other.

And as absurd as it may be, he’s almost grateful for being shot; those two bullets had caused a domino effect that had led Blaine to walk into his hospital room, walk back into his life.

Despite the gunshot wounds, he gets to make things right with Blaine this second time around.

And as he’s standing in his kitchen, his crutch forgotten on the floor in favour of holding Blaine in his arms, kissing the lips he’s missed all these years, he thinks:

Lucky bastard indeed.

\---END.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.  
> Comments welcomed.


End file.
